Linden Hills is a delightful urban community in the southwest corner of Minneapolis. It’s sort of a city within a city, tucked between two lakes, Calhoun and Harriet. In 2004 the Linden Hills Neighborhood Council (LHINC) decided it would be a good idea to have a neighborhood Poet Laureate -- to use poetry as one more way to bring the community together. I’m it.
We put on events -- poetry readings, slams and salons -- throughout the year. Questions? get in touch
This collection of 75 poems by 11 poets who live in the Linden Hills neighborhood of Minneapolis will make you laugh, make you think, break your heart and give you hope.
A great gift for anyone who likes poetry or has ties to the City of Lakes. Perfect for birthdays, Christmas, hostess gifts, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day... and when the kids leave home... or come back.
Available at Linden Hills merchants or directly from Trolley Car Press. $20 includes tax, postage, shipping and handling. wilhide@skypoint.com
POEM OF THE MOMENT
CONTACT US: wilhide@skypoint.com
AMAZINGLY GOOD POETRY FROM AN EXTRAORDINARY CORNER OF THE CITY OF LAKES
UPCOMING EVENTS
FALL POETRY PROJECT -- the Fall Poetry spread will be in the October 5 issue of the Southwest Journal. DEADLINE for submissions is September 8. Send your best work to wilhide@skypoint.com. To see earlier issues, go to swjournal.com, click on the “search archives” button and search for wilhide
The Southwest Journal
is a newspaper published twice a month for the neighborhoods of southwest Minneapolis. I’m the poetry editor. Four times a year we print a two-page spread of local poetry and also put the poems on line.
To submit poems, send text to wilhide@skypoint.com or mail them to:
Doug Wilhide, 3019 West 43rd Street
Minneapolis, MN 554410
The next deadline is September 8.
The next Southwest Journal Poetry Project spread will come out in October.
To view previous editions, click on the link below and search for “wilhide”.
http://www.swjournal.com/index.php?section=84&publication=southwest
Fragments on my mind...
...standing on a corner/In Winslow, Arizona
And such a fine sight to see:
Its a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford
slowin’ down to take a look at me.
Come on, baby, don’t say maybe
I gotta know if your sweet love is
Gonna save me.
We may lose and we may win
Though we will never be here again
So open up, I’m climbin’ in,
So take it easy...
-- from “Take it Easy,” Jackson Browne, Glen Frey
Haze grey and underway/a world away from you... and miles and miles of blue.
-- theme from PBS show CARRIER.
I don’t want clever conversation
Never want to work that hard
I just want someone that I can talk to
I want you just the way you are
-- from Just the Way You are by Billy Joel
You can tell at a glance what a swell night this is for romance; you can hear Mother Nature murmuring low, “Let yourself go.”
-- from It’s De-Lovely by Cole Porter
Venus de Milo was noted for her charms.
But, just between us,
you’re cuter than Venus,
and, what’s more... you’ve got arms!
-- from Love Is Just Around the Corner, lyrics by Leo Robin.
I got the time and the place and the rhythm
All I need is the girl to go with ’em
-- from All I Need is the Girl by Stephen Sondheim.
© 2010 Doug Wilhide
When UPS Delivered My Vermeers
Doug Wilhide
I heard the front door open and close
and the thud of a package left --
no signature required. “Finally,” I thought,
“now where am I going to put them?”
It began, as these things do, with a conversation
about art and perhaps more than a couple glasses
of wine: What if we had money?
Lots of money. Even more than that?
I’d go back in time -- say the early 1890s --
and buy what passed then for contemporary art.
I’d be constrained and responsible
so as not to upset any time/space continuums
or markets or art history majors,
No more than a dozen Monets, I said. The man painted
like a machine -- turned out hundreds of canvases
that embrace the light and also the whimsy,
the youth in all of us, and the air.
Still. One dozen.
I’d make friends with the little guy, Toulouse-Lautrec,
and buy the oils, the chalk-on-cardboard sketches,
and maybe some of the ads for the Moulin Rouge.
A few Van Goghs: the flowers, I think: irises, poppies
and the sunflowers. Half a dozen Cezannes: still lifes
and those sun-filled scenes from the south of France.
Six Picassos: I like the early Blue and Rose period
when he was still figuring out if he was as good as
the cracked mirror told him he was.
Several Renoirs: boating scenes, parties, Parisian streets.
And a few of those Degas ballerinas, just to keep
the collection honest.
This was coming together nicely. I had plans
for the gallery where my collection would be displayed:
wide rooms, with real light playing on the pictures
so they looked different every day,
and well-polished, wood floors that creaked
just a little to prove they were as alive to the art
as you were.
We were about to go in search of more wine
when, out of nowhere, I asked,
“Can I have a few Vermeers, too?”
That classic light, that constraint and passion,
That mystery and refinement. That technique!
We agreed: they were mine.
So now they sit there, on the front porch,
Three canvases (or was it four?), and I’m slow
to go down and get them.
Brilliant they may be
but they don’t fit in my gallery
and I’ll have to call the architect to set up
a separate place to show them.
COMING SOON!
Our SECOND book of local poetry. Over 100 poems representing more than 40 poets, with illustrations by WACSO. A fascinating (and gorgeous) book! Look for it the end of September.